The story of my family’s unique historical links to the Rock of Cashel and Cashel Folk Village
By Bernard Minogue
Transcript
If you are visiting Cashel Folk Village for the first time, the chances are you have already visited the nearby world-renowned Rock of Cashel…I would like to bring you on a fascinating journey combining both of the sites mentioned. My name is Bernard Minogue and the following is an account of my unique family links to both the Rock of Cashel and Cashel Folk Village.
My family were once the owners of the Rock of Cashel – or so I thought. Let me explain. I arrived into this world on the 3rd October 1958, when I was born in the beautiful and historic Rock Cottage, which is situated literally directly underneath the Rock of Cashel.
Rock Cottage was built in the mid to late 1800s to act as the residence of the sole caretaker of The Rock – and that is exactly what my family have been for a period spanning three different centuries.
Rock Cottage is the only original caretaker’s home existing in Ireland today, whereby three centuries later the original family not alone still live inside it, but were actually born inside in it as well.
Starting in the late 1800s my great-grandfather was the first sole caretaker of the site, followed on next by my granduncle, then my grandfather, then my father – making my ancestral line the first and the last sole caretakers of the Rock. Even to this very day our unique link is still maintained. Where once you had just one person responsible for everything at the site, now you have up to forty four guides in the peak of the summer season, and, incredibly, my first cousin is now Chief Guide and Site Supervisor, and her sister, her son, and her brother-in-law are working as guides under her direction thereby maintaining the unique family link for the third century in a row.
As my father, Billy Minogue, was the very last sole caretaker it meant in practise that he was responsible for everything at the location i.e. the daily opening and closing, the guided tours, the site maintenance, the organising and recording of all burials, and he was also responsible for the nearby abbeys – that is Hoare Abbey and St Dominic’s Abbey. In truth, it was an impossible task for any person on their own, so eventually my mother was approached by the O.P.W. to work at the Rock – strictly on a commission only basis – to help my father. I would guess that they are the only husband and wife team to ever run and operate a major historical site completely on their own, and my mother also opened a souvenir shop at the castle itself.
So, as you can well imagine, I spent a huge amount of my childhood with the Rock as my playground – daily after school, during my summer holidays, at weekends and bank holidays – literally whenever I possibly could. The Kings of Munster, St Patrick, Brian Ború were my heroes as I stood enchanted listening proudly to my father as he carried on his magnificent guided tours, while my mother waited eagerly for the visitors to then come into her shop. The main reason I was so eager and so proud was because of the fact that my parents owned this magnificent world-renowned monument. What else was I supposed to think? They worked there on a seven day a week basis all year round and were responsible for everything at the monument. We even had our own shop here.
If any of my friends from school tried to visit the Rock I would stop them to ask where were they going. If they said they were going to visit the monument I would tell them they couldn’t visit without my permission because we owned the Rock. I was crestfallen when I eventually found out we didn’t actually own it.
But at least my family do own the historic Rock Cottage, and we also own the Rock of Cashel shop just across the road from the house, and my aunt and uncle-in-law own the beautiful Granny’s Kitchen Cafeteria at the Rock Car Park, and my first cousin and her family members still manage the site. So, in many ways, we are still the keepers of the Kings.